The Portland daily press., 1887-11-16
STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
College Buildings Like None Others
In the Land.
cincinnati Inauirer.l


This land even with orchards and vine
yards upon it, would seem to be a prospect
i've and speculative dover to college if it
were not for the fact that the building which
1 personally walked over and took in with
my eye, is in size almost unexampled in the
history of college building. The house now
going up, which is expected to be dedicated
and occupied next year at the time the son of
Mr.. Stanford would have been a man of his
majority, had he lived, is 600 feet long by $50
feet wide. This is the size of the quadrang-
lie merely, and the cloister or covered
walk. Round the inside of this square is
LOO feet in length The capitol at Wash
ington is, think, a little longer than the first
block of this Stanford university Ii there
De people ready to jump at the conclusion
that SO much building indicates lavish ex-
penditure and future extravaganza in keep
ing Il up, would arrest their wisdom by the
remark that this great quadrangle is only one
story high, and is conceived in breadth
but not in loftiness. and with due preference
to the future, indeed with more reference to
70 hundred years hence than to the present
day.
The man who resolved to conclude his
career and lay his ashes in this institution
has been wide awake all his life, and has
avoided notoriety and loudness, and with all
niS euOScoo uds Dcen perhaps Tue most mod
est man in California, Although Protest
ant, and in all his feelings an American of
the, old New England and New York stock,
ne has regarded the old mission houses of
the Spanish Jesults in California with a
practical eye, and they were recommended
to him for their GOODNESS, their stabily against
storms and earthquakes, and on the whole.
their plctureSQuenesS and consonance with a
landscape which often reveals to the mind
the similar structures of the Spanish in the
land of the Moors about old Granada.
Mr.. Stanford's design is of series of long
low halls connected with each other by archi-
tectural curtains, and ON the court side or
square recessed into good, wide arcade of
stone, somewhat like the old cloisters of the
monks, while on the back or external side
nails and recitation rooms are fully lighted
from the south and west. In the centre of
the first half Of the great court rises the
chapel tower to height of 100 feet, and this
IS the only high feature in the building. The
chapel is about 100 feet deep and the great
arcade or cloister have spoken of is contin-
ued right before it, and probably there will
be an archway in front of this church and its
cloisterr. The architecture is quite Spanish
in its character, having been designated by
the architectural estate which was founded
by the late Mr.. Richardson of Boston, who
made more reputation than any other archi-
tect the United States has ever had. One of
tne architects dwells at the university, super
ylslng the work as it is getting on. Fred L.
Olmstead is laying out the drives and walks
throughout the estate, which is some three
to five miles long and two or three miles
wide, and embraces level lands, magnificent
vineyards, foothills and background of
noble mountains rising to the height of per-
maps $500 feet, while in front of the college
across San Francisco Bay, tower the highest
peaks of the Coast Range, which are from
$500 to 800 feet high.